Nov. 20th - 24th
As hard as it was to leave Rami and Karima behind, it was still nice to have a change of scenery; even if that meant having to get our bearings in yet another scorching-hot, desert city. Dongola, the next city on our voyage through the Sudan, was larger than Karima and seemed to be better kept, although I was quite skeptical of meeting characters worthy to be mentioned in the same list as Girgis and Rami.
It didn't take long, maybe a total of 2 minutes, before we were welcomed by one of the few English speakers in this Nubian community. His name was Abdul and he was incredibly enthusiastic about promoting the tourism industry in Dongola and eagerly handed us his business card. We gladly accepted it because Abdul had just shown us to the finest hotel in all of Dongola. We stowed away our bags and joined him for tea. He explained his objectives in starting a tourism company. Although the idea was great, after spending several minutes in this city, I really couldn't understand what would draw tourists here other than the fact that it was a logical stop along the route from Khartoum to Wadi Halfa.
As in Karima, the hotel would not let us check-in until we had registered. After stopping and asking for directions from numerous hotel clerks and a plethora of friendly Sudanese, we finally found the office after an hour in the brutal heat. We sauntered back to the hotel and did not move for the rest of the sun-lit hours.
To be honest, other than wandering around the abandoned streets and eating falafel every few hours, we really didn't do much in Dongola. The friends we had met in Khartoum, Martin and Dina, had arrived a day after us, but the draining sun and lack of places to drink or even smoke shisha (it was banned here as well), left very little to do after dinner. We enjoyed our conversations with the two Europeans, but they would be short lived, because Chris and I would be heading to Abri, on the recommendation of Abdul and Isa, a Korean expat who is in the process of opening a Nubian guesthouse, to visit the historically significant Sai island.
In a few days, Martin would be joining us in Wadi Halfa to take the same weekly ferry to Egypt that we would be taking. Dina, on the other hand, would be going back to Khartoum to try to work out the problems she had been experiencing in trying to obtain a Visa for Ethiopia: apparently they (Ethiopia and Lithuania) have no diplomatic relationship with each other and are therefore not letting her into the country!
The following day, we left our hotel, said goodbye to Randa and her husband, a lovely Sudanese couple currently living in Saudi Arabia, but visiting/working at our hotel in Dongola; and went to catch the microbus that Abdul had gotten us seats on.
The drive to Abri was relatively short, and before we knew it, we had arrived in that two-camel town. We immediately went to the bus station and reserved our tickets for a bus leaving the following day to Wadi Halfa, our final stop in Sudan. Once the lazy-eyed man at the front desk assured us that we would not miss the bus the following day, we now had to find a place to stay. This didn't prove to be very difficult, due to the fact that Abri only has one lokanda. Because of Eid, the accommodation was completely empty, which was fortunate for us, in that we could choose which out of the terrible rooms available would be the least abhorrent to sleep in. In fact, we initially refused to stay there due to the condition of the rooms and the inflated price, but were forced due to the lack of any other place to stay.
Our next mission was to make our way to the public ferry which is located approximately 3 km from Abri, and would drop us off on Sai island. This proved to be more difficult than we had anticipated and we finally managed to haggle with a truck driver to drive us there for an almost fair price. Once there, we found out that the public ferries had already stopped for the day, but we could hire a local boatman who could take us across.
The man told us a price that was a rather inflated version of what Abdul and Isa had told us it should cost, but we had come all this way and therefore gave in to his apparent swindling. Once we arrived on the island, we approached two young men who were just lounging around. They claimed to be police officers and asked for a 20 Pound (7-dollars) admission fee. Since there was absolutely no signs posted anywhere, no tickets and both these guys were dressed in plain-clothes, we promptly refused. They continued to insist until I asked one of them to show me his police identification. He said that he didn't have it on him, and I stated that unless he went to get it, we were not going to pay. He took his dirt-bike and returned shortly after, showing me the I.D. Since I don't read Arabic, I still couldn't tell if it actually was a legitimate claim. By this point, I had stopped caring, paid them the money and was finally going to see me some damn ruins!
Sai Island covers 12-km from north to south and 5.5-km from east to west and is one of the largest islands in all of the Nile valley. It's strategic location made it an ideal location for settlements and there is an abundance of ancient ruins to prove it. The earliest of which is from Ancient Egypt's southern expansion dating from the middle of the second millennium B.C. It continued to be an important site for thousands of years, and even the Ottoman Empire had built a fortress on top of the Egyptian ruins in the 16th century A.D. What is particularly impressive regarding this site, is that you can actually see the stratification of Ottoman and Egyptian ruins, one on top of the other.
After wandering around the ruins for a while and taking our picture with the few Nubian children near the ruins, Chris and I sat and stared at the beautiful Nile river while the sun reflected off the copper-coloured mountains in the distance. Despite the difficulty to get there, and the seemingly incessant swindling that was taking place, it was actually a very stunning place.
The boatman called us a cab and we took it back to Abri. Once in Abri, we wandered around looking for some food. Eid once again proved to be our enemy, in that everything was closed. We managed to find a convenience store and I bought several Stims (a malted, apple-flavoured beverage that was to die for) and we waited for a nearby grill to open. The man only offered fried fish and bread, but it was good enough for us. As we were eating, a Sudanese man approached and addressed us in surprisingly fluent English. He introduced himself as Magzoub and wanted to know what we thought of Abri and Sai island. We stated that it was very nice, but that we were being ripped-off by everyone offering us pretty much anything in this small town.
I had made the mistake of using the expression "fucking us over", because then Magzoub had asked me who it was that had offered us such prices, and upon hearing their names (everyone knows each other), vowed to fuck each and every one of them. I know it's obviously not what he meant, but I still found it quite hilarious. To make it up to us, Magzoub had invited us to attend a traditional Nubian wedding with him that evening. Chris, who was absolutely fed up with Sudan at this point, kindly refused, but I decided I would check it out.
I then followed Magzoub through the sprawling streets, away from Abri's central core and we were soon on our way to the wedding. Magzoub made sure to stop at several homes along the way and introduce me to his family and friends, who all offered me shisha and some form of Nubian delicacy. I gladly obliged and found myself quite fond of Nubian cuisine and hospitality. Once at the wedding, I stood in the outer circle looking at the participants as they danced and sang in frenzied unison. I quite enjoyed the Nubian music blasting over the loudspeakers, but still struggled to figure out what was going on. It didn't help that every few seconds someone would come up to me and ask me where I was from, but it comes with the territory being white in northern Sudan! After around a half-an-hour, I told Magzoub that I wanted to let him enjoy the wedding and that I should be on my way. He helped me get back to familiar territory and I went to the hotel to enjoy a good-night-sleep.
Magzoub had arranged for a microbus to pick us up and drive us to Wadi Halfa, our final destination in Sudan. It arrived shortly after we woke up and once again, we were on the open road. We both got the front seat and had to listen to Islamic sermons for the entirety of the ride, but being in Arabic, I could tune them out quite easily. By midday, we had arrived in Wadi Halfa, and had checked into a wonderful hotel called Kilopatra. Compared to the "Al-Fucker" (pronounced this way, definitely not spelled this way) hotel, this place was the Ritz: it's clean rooms, ceiling fans and proximity to restaurants made it an oasis in the barren desert wasteland we were used to by this point.
Another change of pace from the other cities we had visited on our two week voyage through northern Sudan was the abundance of white people. Since Wadi Halfa is both the entrance from Egypt and the exit from Sudan into Egypt, it sees it's fair share of overlanders coming through. Rich Europeans drive their ridiculously huge off-road vehicles, campers, motorbikes or a combination of every conceivable gas-guzzling vehicle, through this town on their quest to reach South Africa. There are far fewer travelers who start in the south and make their way north, and even fewer who do it by public transport.
Because of all this traffic, Wadi Halfa actually has all the amenities you could ask for, ranging from several good restaurants, to Internet cafes and shisha houses. By the end of our first afternoon, we had already already gathered a small posse who would be joining us on our ferry towards Aswan in Egypt. The first guy was Rene, a professor from the Netherlands, who was just completing a drive around the perimeter of Africa in his Toyota 4-Runner. The stories he had to tell after his nearly 2-year adventure were uncanny. I had actually met him several days before on my final night in Karima. We were also joined by Ahmed, an Egyptian from Alexandria, who was doing an exchange program in Sudan and who is planning on eventually cycling from Alexandria into the Sudan. Robert, a Czech anthropologist who Magzoub told me to say hello to, also joined our group. Jens, a German artist and cycling-enthusiast who had started cycling in Ethiopia and had planned on finishing in Cairo was the next to join our group. The final member to join us was Martin, the Italian NGO worker we had met in Khartoum.
Since Rene had his truck and Jens had his bike, the remaining five of us had decided to meet before the ferry departure and walk there together. We were very fortunate to have met Mazar, a Sudanese man who helps foreigners arrange their passports and paperwork in order to leave Sudan. Apparently, Mazar helped Ewan McGregor while he was doing his overland Africa trip in 2007.
The ferry was "scheduled" to leave some time in the afternoon and Mazar recommended that we get to the ferry before noon in order to avoid any setbacks and to grab a place to sleep for all those who had purchased second-class tickets. For once, Chris and I decided to splurge and we had bought ourselves first-class tickets including a meal and closed cabin with bunk-beds to sleep.
As the five of us made our way along the dusty road towards the ferry, numerous Egyptians and Sudanese honked and smiled as they passed. We figured it was a tremendous sight for them to see "rich westerners" walking and carrying their heavy luggage, while they enjoyed the luxury of rickshaws and cars. Once on the ferry, the rest of our crew grabbed spots on the deck to set up their tents or sleeping bags.
As we sailed on lake Nasser, which is largely the result of the construction of the Aswan High Dam, it was surreal to think that Chris and I were entering the final country on our incredible African adventure. It was made official as we heard the ferry's horn bellow repeatedly: we were now in Egypt.
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